Samsung’s new Android tablets are so popular that it had to halt preorders

People like Android tablets? That is the bizarro world presented to us by the latest news from Samsung. The company made the Galaxy Tab S8 lineup available for preorder last week, and now Samsung says the tablet is so popular that it had to stop taking preorders.

XDA Developers noticed preorders were shut down for some models and got the following statement from Samsung:

We are thrilled by the consumer response to our new Galaxy Tab S8 lineup. Due to the overwhelming demand in the last 48 hours, we will be pausing preorders at Samsung.com for the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra and Galaxy Tab S8. We are working quickly to meet consumer excitement and demand. Please stay tuned for more updates

Samsung launched three models of the S8 last week: the base model Tab S8, the Tab S8+, and the Tab S8 Ultra. Only the Tab S8+ is still up for sale, with the $699 Tab S8 and $1,099 Ultra model listed as “sold out.”

The Ultra model made headlines for being a giant 14.6-inch tablet with a unique slim-bezel design and a Macbook-Pro-style display notch for the front camera. The other models have a more traditional tablet design. The Tab S8 line sports flagship specs, with a Snapdragon 8 Gen-1 SoC, 8GB of RAM, high-res screens, and aluminum bodies.

There’s no obvious reason for the Tab S8 to be suddenly popular. Other than the camera notch, Samsung’s Tab S8 line is not that different from the Tab S7 line, which launched in 2020. Samsung opted not to update the Tab S line in 2021, suggesting that it wasn’t a huge seller. The company is saying the shortage is due to higher sales, but it could just be the usual supply chain problems. According to the IDC, Samsung is the number-two tablet maker after Apple, with 20 percent of the market.

Google is hoping for a resurrection of Android tablets with a launch of Android 12L in March and a push for more tablet apps. We haven’t seen the effects of that in the market yet, but many OEMs, including Samsung, are showing a renewed commitment to Android tablets.